Gecko has been included as the rendering engine for Mozilla for years. Firefox provides some nice features but Gecko is what renders the pages. Why? Because Gecko is what really matters and like all other browsers Gecko only continues to evolve. Firefox does indeed rock but I would argue that the Linux desktop isn’t any better now than it was before Firefox. Despite that, I still use GAIM on Windows and Linux because I love the tabbed conversations andįirefox and Gecko. The *only* thing it has managed to do is continue to access the things you list. I *still* can’t transfer files worth crap, I *still* can’t do voice with it. GAIM works no better today than it did 3 years ago. XRenderAccel - google found one example of what this is so it can’t be too earth shattering.ĪTI driver support.no comment, I don’t play many games and improved 3d graphics still won’t let me run google earth. What version of KDE/GNOME do I need to be running to make that work right? And are you telling me that I can finally, after 3 years put a cd in, copy files and hit the eject button and tada, it pops out? All of the supermount and automount stuff sucked 3 years ago and still doesn’t impress me today. In other words, Microsoft’s business team has put it in such a strong position that Microsoft can surve millions of wrongs in its technical department. These people buy a new computer when the first one has spyware and worms. * General public who are afraid at the /prospect/ of having learning something and think Windows Vista will be easy. * Business leaders scared to take risks, and they believe anything Microsoft tells them. * MSCE scared/unwilling to retrain, and relatively few officially skilled Linux workers. Even my public library promotes classes on Microsoft Word, Excel, and MSIE. * Grade schools, colleges, and universities, that require and indoctrinate Microsoft software. * MSIE-only web sites (including most local government web sites here) * Niche Windows-only software such as your grandma’s electronic sowing machine designer software and Visioneer scanner drivers * Hardware vendors in terms of support, compatability, and pre-install availability Microsoft’s pervasive conspirary has a lot of power: I don’t mean support from companies like Microsoft, Novell or Red Hat, I mean friends who know how Linux or people at your local computer or electronics store who can give recommendations. The key thing missing for most people right now is a support network. It was “The year of the CD” for 10 years before it hit critical mass, and CDs have an enormous advantage over LPs for both stores (who need less shelf space) and people (better quality, need less space, less chance of scratching). It’ll take a bit more time to get to the average Joe’s desktop and even longer for Joe sixpack’s desktop, but it can get there. These days its getting close to the educated Joe user stage. About 2004 it became a solid corporate desktop. About 2002sh it was a good Unix or Windows power user’s desktop. Back in 2000, it was a good Unix techie desktop. Each year since 2000 we’ve been hearing that “This is the year of the Linux Desktop”, and each year it was true, just a different desktop. How many times we heard that this is time for Linux
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